


Tough Enough

by TenyaTrash



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Brooding, Character Study, Choi Saeran Route, Choi Saeran-centric, Gen, Guns, Mild Blood, POV Choi Saeran, Poor Choi Saeran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 11:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18409439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenyaTrash/pseuds/TenyaTrash
Summary: Just a small character study of what I think Unknown must be feeling during the Another Story route and in general. No real shipping or interaction with other characters, just him trying to work through his own feelings, alone. Just like he's used to. This is the same Unknown I might use later in a longer fic, but for now, it's a stand-alone.





	Tough Enough

Unknown exits the chat room and resists the urge to slam his fist into the wall. He knows he’d only be punishing himself, instead of getting even with them, the ones that actually deserve it. So rather than giving in, he paces and growls and feels pathetically impotent, like a once-proud tiger penned and forced to endure the shrieks and babbles of slow-witted children in some half-baked zoo. He was strong. He was right. He was the one who should be on top. 

Yet thanks to these bars, these limitations set by his Savior and his whinging weaker self, he is forced to endure those that he has every right to dominate, to control, to kill. He pushes dampened hair out of his eyes and looks for something else to do. Something to take his mind off of the weak-willed hypocrites that would dare feel pity for him, who would offer slavery and weakness under the guise of “love.”

 _Disgusting._

Every moment he spends monitoring the group, revulsion claws at the back of his throat and angry messages beg permission to fly across his keyboard. He wants, so desperately, to lay bare all the inadequacies and injustices of those who dared call themselves his protectors. He wants burn them and to revel in the ashes of all their good intentions. 

Those traitors wove such pretty stories, stories about rescue and self-sacrifice and fucking religion, never admitting that they were cruel cowards who refused to acknowledge anything or anyone that didn’t fit into their neat little narrative. It makes him want to scream his throat bloody, makes him want to hurt and be hurt in turn. At least violence is honest. 

At least you can trust the feel of a knife against your throat, trust the heartbeat that skitters just under the skin.

His hand begins to twitch against his leg in an anxious rhythm. Something to do, something to distract, something to keep him from breaking into that damn apartment and painting the walls red, just because he can. Something, anything.

His pacing has a purpose now, hands and eyes sweeping across the impersonal room. Computers, bed, concrete walls. Metal shelves and muddied boots strewn across a concrete floor. Locked cabinets and steamer trunks, all in the name of security, all in the name of trust. He wonders what that woman would think if her precious Ray brought her down here: if she saw who he really was. He can almost see the tears in those too-wide eyes, almost feel her hands on him as she assures him, over and over, that this isn’t who he really is. 

He winces involuntarily.  
Not because her imagined reaction hurts.  
No, she can’t hurt him.  
He refuses to allow it.  
Never again. 

_Distraction, distraction, distraction._  
He pops open one of his favorite trunks and softly caresses the assembled weapons and tactical gear. 

This is who he wants to be.  
An avenger.  
This is the control he needs.  
He’s not a victim. 

His fingers click against the cold metal of his other gun. Right. 

Too slim hands tighten reflexively as he imagines standing over the redhead and playing his very own, very inescapable version of Russian Roulette. He bought a special revolver just for it, a birthday present to the very worst brother in the world. He smiles darkly as he imagines crushing those stupid, attention-seeking glasses under his heel and watching those lying eyes fill up with self-pity and tears. Imagines the brat pissing himself with every empty click of the chamber until the moment that his luck runs out and all those worthless tears are replaced with equally worthless blood. 

_Someday._

For now, he focuses on taking care of the firearm that he has so very many plans for, unzipping the cleaning kit and sitting with his back to those infuriating computer monitors. As his hands fly through the near-automatic motions of this little ritual, he can’t help but let his mind wander in some reflexive attempt to impose order on his disordered thoughts. 

When he flicks open the empty chamber and spins it soothingly against his palm, he thinks of his dearly departed mother-- a pitiless monster who would have destroyed him completely, had he not finally stopped waiting for others to save him. He bites into his lip in disgust at the small voice in the back of his head that still longs for her approval. That’s the weakness in him, trying to worm its way out, trying to reconcile the truth of his past with the lie he once wanted so desperately to believe. 

_Pathetic._

He clamps down on those intrusive thoughts as he dips the cleaning brush in solvent and threads it carefully through the revolver barrel. As the rifling of the gun forces his hand to twist along with the brush, he remembers all the people who have forced him over the years. 

Of mother and that corner, where he stood on trembling legs, caught between his fear of passing out and his fear of pissing her off. 

Of self-styled martyr Saeyoung, who acts like Saeran’s some unlockable tragic anime backstory instead of a living and breathing person, who feels fucking pain. Who was betrayed. Who was left to suffer and die for both their sins.

Of V, the demon who tricked them all, the grand liar who promised it would all be okay, right up til the moment that he ripped them apart, keeping the one he deemed useful and discarding the other like so much trash. 

Of that stupid little girl that he had brought into all this, some clueless little do-gooder who won’t stop trying to connect, but only with Ray, only with the seething weakness that he can’t stand to call his own. 

Even the Savior, with all she’s done for him, with how strong she’s made him- even she felt the need to change him to fit what she wanted. 

Every last person who has ever claimed they’ve cared, they’ve lied. Their care always comes with strings. It’s always some other, different version of him that they want, some part he has to play.

 _Be a silent little boy._

He takes a dry run at the barrel. 

_Be the one who takes it all, without complaint. Who covers for me when I run off to church. When I leave you._

He brushes the muzzle roughly. 

_Be strong for your brother. Be good for Rika. Stay smiling._

He moves the bristle-brush to the outer edges of the smooth cylinder. 

_Be useful. Be my avenging angel. Be a hacker. Be better._

He pops out and cleans the extractor rod. 

_Be my sweet, soft boy. Bring me roses and tell me you’re a victim. Let me save you._

He accidentally catches the skin when he shoves the rod back in and watches the blood bloom. 

**Be, be, be.**

He watches the red drip, drip, drip in pretty patterns across his half-cleaned gun. 

No one ever fucking asks what he wants. Who he is. Not one of them, yet they’d all swear they were just looking out for him, just wanted what was best. 

He smears his blood against the gun and stares at his distorted reflection. 

Liars. 

They wanted him weak. Wanted him controllable, malleable, wanted him to be whatever made them feel better about their own empty lives and self-serving choices. If that’s love, then he chooses pain. Chooses loneliness. At least it’s honest. 

He wipes the blood away with the hem of his shirt. They don’t get to decide who or what he is. He’s his own man, and even if he’s not sure what he’s meant to be, even if the weakness and hatred claw their way through his life and his dreams, this is his life, and he refuses to become someone else’s twisted reflection. 

Never again.


End file.
